Mark E Shellshear.

Art chooses you and then you have learn to listen to your Muse and not to all the negative voices coming from within and without. Art is a very jealous Mistress, she wants your attention always and requires everything from you and often gives little in return, but she demands your work be done for her with the strictest obedience, this a calling not a hobby. If you are struggling with your Art, rejoice she requires that, she knows struggle builds endurance and determination, if you always feel you are just inches away from a break through, rejoice that is how she stretches you. If you are nagged with self doubt and fear, rejoice she wants you to overcome them and learn to go where there are no sign posts. She is always there but just out of your reach that is how she gets you out of your comfort zone and pushes you to go into new and dangerous places with your Art, the place of miracles and magic, the home of the Muse where original Art is created. ...

Art is personal and it is the story of our life journey and Art must be shared with those who love our Art. It is shared through gifting our Art to others or selling it to those who want to buy it and it is done out of generosity. Art is a generous gift given by the Artist to the world. As the Artist gives out their gift through the sale there is a connection made with the collector and a part of the genius of the Artist goes to reside in the collectors home. You don’t have to be the most talented Artist to be successful but you do have to bring passion, enthusiasm and generosity with your Art, if you want others to be passionate and enthusiastic about your gift. So focus on the generous gift that you are giving and not on those who are not interested in what you are doing, you did not make it for them, you made it for those who love your Art, these are the ones you want to share your Art with.

I was asked the question why do people copy other Artists especially the famous ones? First it’s easy to do. If you have drawing skills and patience you can copy any painting it just takes time to learn to do. It must be easy because so many do it, it is a learned skill it is not being a talented Artist, it is being a factory worker. Second they avoid being responsible. When you copy the Art of someone else you do not have the responsibility of coming up with the original thought and idea, you are just like Xerox machine and copy off the painting. Of course many will tell you how talented you are and that your work is even better than the original, but it’s not it’s a copy and a fake. Then if people do not like the work you have an out because you can say, I did not do the original painting, I just copied it, I cannot be blamed. Third, it’s safe. When you copy the fear is quiet, because you are not pushing any boundaries because you know the painting can be done as y...

I know this might not be for every Artist, because many people need rules in their Art practice to go forward because that is how they were taught in school. You are not a camera either but that was how you were taught to see to paint and draw. Original Art is about allowing the muse to lead us and cause us to see with our imagination not look for a rule book. My daughter painted a painting when she was at school and made the sky orange and the teacher said she was wrong to do that and fix it because the sky is blue, she told her teacher that her daddy paints the sky orange and he is an Artist, the teacher said nothing more. There are no rules my friends, be like a child and paint the sky orange if you want to. You don't have to ask first, just do as the muse leads. If you have to ask, it might not be Art?

People want to believe that there is a secret to success an easy way to build a good Art practice, there is no easy way, it takes time . It is the same with weight loss and fitness, there are no easy ways, it all takes time. Many people ignore this truth because the story they are telling themselves is better, that they are different and they can easily do it. This just leads to disappointment and frustration. The key to success in the Art business is consistency. Doing it today, and then doing it again tomorrow a little better. If your desire is always to do it a little better every day, you will improve. If you only improve a little each day every day you will change your life dramatically in one year. It is never the big gains that count it’s the small incremental gains, day after day. It’s like the slow drip of a tap, it drips into a bucket and you look in and see that there is so little water but over time the bucket overflows and the gain is great, it jus...

Work hard on building your confidence and self worth and to accomplish this use affirmations that are positive and inspiring and also have your goals written out. A great confidence builder when you are faced with a disappointment or crisis is to go and read your goals out loud, five or more times and repeat your affirmations. You can do this to steady yourself and get your mind back on what you want to achieve rather than focus on the disappointment. This takes discipline to do, rather than react to the situation and be defeated and become bitter. You are the most important asset that you have, work on you to make you better. Listen to positive affirming talks. Stay around positive successful people. Know your goals and have them written out. Read your affirmations out loud to yourself. Achieve your to do list every day. Don't leave it to chance, you are worth more than that, determine to build your confidence and self worth.

If you are not sold on yourself, it will be very hard to sell yourself to others. If you are not sold on your Art, it will be very hard to sell your Art to others. How you think about yourself has a great influence on how others think about you. I have had sales people who were timid and reserved and said that they could not sell Art and they were right. I have had sales people who were enthusiastic and confident and said they could sell Art and they did. Both these sales people were right, we talk ourselves into or out of our ability to do something. You are who you think you are. If you are negative and critical about your Art work you will have trouble selling it to others as you are convinced it is not good. But if you love your Art work and you are positive and praise and appreciate yourself you will most likely sell because that is what will come across to your viewer...

The only real basics that people have for judging your abilities as an Artist are your actions. The most important thing right now is “ now performance” not your future performance. You must preform at your best as the unknown Artist before you can preform at your best as a known Artist. If you can produce important Art work now and have the attitude you are an important Artist when you are unknown you can know your future work will be important. Attitude and high standard of work predicts outcome

Being a successful Artist is learning the discipline of focusing on the things that you can control and not on the things that you cannot control. To much emotional energy is wasted on things that we have no control over, so learn to focus on what you can change. Within your Art practice you have the ability to change everything, you can change your style, your medium, your work habits and everything relating to your Art and yourself, but most seem to focus more on what they cannot change. You cannot change the government, you can rail at the wind but it will make no difference. You cannot change the economy, it is the way it is. You cannot change your buyers attitudes, they are the way they are. You cannot change Galleries, they will do what they believe is best for them. You cannot change what others think and say, people are people. The only things you can change is your Art practice and yourself. If you work on fixing all your own faults, you will change ...

As the Artist you control the outcome of your painting . It is your painting so paint to your expectations, not the expectations of others. People will always offer good advice and direction, but this is your Art journey, your passion, your creativity, your painting and you control the final result. So many Artists are intimidated by the opinions of others that they paint what others want rather than what they, the Artist wants. Original thought is the key and original thought comes from educating yourself, reading books and experimenting with different mediums and searching for your vision. You will never discover your vision through trying to meet others expectations if anything it will deaden original thought and vision, because it must come from within you not from someone else. Use original thought combined with your imagination and then paint what your imagination sees. Paint your vision and change your world, do not let the world change you. ...

Success is not one particular day when all the stars aligned and you became an overnight success. Most overnight successes take years and years. Success is persistently doing your Art day after day and being able to look back over the years and see what you have accomplished. Yet for those Artists that do stop painting, it’s not from lack of great ideas, but for not putting action into those great ideas. They procrastinate, they make excuses, they never really commit to the Art journey and what is behind this, fear, the thief. We must give great ideas legs and put action behind them. The way to action ideas is to write them down in your journal and plan out the steps to make it happen because for great ideas to become reality they must be planned out step by step and then take action. It is the plan backed by deliberate action that makes it happen and you will be able to look back and see the advancement that you have made in your Art career. To become an overn...

Every customer is extremely important to your Art career even the ones who buy your lower priced Art works. Do not consider them as one sale only but consider them as a potential life long buyer, that means that they are very valuable to you. So on that first sale make sure it is very positive memorable experience for them. It has to be more than them having a financial transaction with you, they must remember you and the great friendly service you gave them so they will go away and talk about you and your wonderful Art. Never consider people as one sale, think of them as life long buyers, if you do this you will see them as friends to be made because you are going to know them for a long time. Now to do this you will need to be able to regularly contact them, so after the transaction has taken place make sure you give them your Artist pack so they can contact you and get their email address off them and ask permission off them if you can send them you monthly newsle...

Not all of us had wonderful teachers as we grew up as I said in my last blog my Uncle was a good man as was my very patient Grandfather but once out in the world like everyone I experienced my share of bad and destructive teachers. The only advantage I had is that I had experienced a good teacher so I could easily recognize them as bad but that did not rescue me from them. All of us learn from being taught. So what value is there in a bad teacher? We learn how not to treat people and what not to do, there is always a lesson to learn.. That may not be what people want to hear but we must dig through the dirt to get to the gold. We learn how we want to be treated and how we want to be taught. So now we must treat others as we want to be treated. We must teach others as we wanted to be taught. Give unto others as we would want them to give unto us. Care about others as we would want them to care about us. We must also talk to other Artists about their work as ...

My great uncle taught me wood carving when I was 8 years old, he was a wonderful teacher, he would show me how to do and get me to try and it was very hard. I would mess it up all the time and he would just smile and say good try and then he would show me again and again until I finally learnt how to do it. Then my mother would arrive to get me he would show her my last piece and say how wonderful it was and appreciate how well I was progressing. He taught me well yet never once got upset or and told me how terrible my work was. Encouragement is such a powerful tool and through his patience and encouragement I became a reasonable wood carver. I see no place in the Art world for criticism, I do not know one Artist who was criticized by some insecure teacher who ever enjoyed it or learned anything from it other than it was a horrible experience and wanting to give up. It says in ancient script, “The sweetness of the lips increases learning.” The power to express tho...

If an Artists believes she is among the best then she will preform at her best and create wonderful Art. She believes in herself good thing will happen, because she expects them to happen, that the story she is telling herself. How we think about ourselves will determine how we act. How we will act either with courage or timidity, our thinking will shape that. All of us are a product of all our past thoughts. Change our thinking and we will change our lives.

Many businesses and Artists when going through a downturn in sales get to the point where they really want a lucky break and I hear it often, “ If only I could catch a lucky break.” But what if the lucky break doesn’t come then what? Just struggle on ? You see this type of thinking is all wrong, a lucky break will not save them because of their defeated attitude, they have given up and are now depending on luck as their only answer, but the truth is that if they preform better then their business will get better. The high performers in the Arts have a very positive attitude not a defeatist attitude, they expect themselves to preform at their highest level possible everyday because that is how you build a successful Art career. Having a positive attitude and a determination to preform at their highest level and to constantly strive for that every day. That is why a positive attitude is so important because it makes one determined that I can do it and I will do it....

Artists refuse to talk about the negative. The more you talk about it the worse it becomes. Talking about the negative gives it growth, it is like adding fertilizer to weeds you just make them grow stronger. Don’t talk about your problems focus on the blessings in your life. We all have problems that’s part of life but lets not amplify them, deal with them, work through them but do not cause them to get stronger. We know if we talk about the negative most of the time, then most of the time we will be negative. But if we talk about the positive most of the time, then most of the time we will be positive and friendly. Thoughts both positive or negative grow stronger when we feed them with constant repetition. Chose to think and talk about the positive things in your life most of the time, then most of the time your attitude will be positive and creative.